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Fried Egg Plant

Fried eggplant slices coated in egg and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Fried Egg Plant

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fried Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the eggplant and soak in a mixture of salt and water for 1-2 hours.

  2. Pat the slices dry and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Bread and fry

  1. Dip each slice in beaten egg, then coat with grated bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in butter until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Eggplant + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,123 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Eggplant + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together265 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggplant
Forms the tender interior that contrasts with the crisp coating.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumbs to the eggplant slices so the coating holds during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when fried.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and promotes browning and rich flavour.

The step that matters

Fry in butter until golden brown. Frying over moderate heat lets the crumb coating brown and crisp while the eggplant cooks through. Too little heat leaves the slices greasy and soft; too much browns the crust before the interior softens.

Swap the eggplant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, egg, bread, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, bread, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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